


wishbone (summer nights)

by heavensgate



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Anal Sex, Friends to Lovers, Handcuffs, Hiatus, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-11 03:02:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20146525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heavensgate/pseuds/heavensgate
Summary: Pete's been MIA for a few months now; radio-silence without even a hint of static, stuttered transmission, and Patrick doesn't care, really, honestly (See Exhibit A: new phone. who’s this?— Patrick is a little proud of himself for that one). But when Pete posts a blog entry saying Fall Out Boy was over and was hinting at a secret DJ career in Jamaica, Patrick might care a little bit (See Exhibit B: the one-way ticket Patrick has booked to Kingston— Patrick admits this is not one of his finest moments).or a hiatus au but the overly-dramatic summer romance edition where in between all the chaos there are conversations on a rooftop, a near-death experience, and handcuffs; based on that one black cards song.





	wishbone (summer nights)

**Author's Note:**

> This is where the evening splits in half, Henry, love or death. Grab an end, pull hard, and make a wish  
\- Wishbone, Richard Siken

When Patrick’s plane arrives in Jamaica in the middle of the night, it doesn’t feel that way. He steps out of the airport, the scuffed dress shoes he wears to Soul Punk shows hitting the concrete with a loud snap, like he was announcing his presence here, only for it to be drowned out by the sounds of nightlife. Kingston is alive in a way Patrick never thought it could be, the city smoke and neon lights filling him with wonder and he finds himself wide-eyed outside the airport, looking up into the tall skyscrapers looming above him; sure, he’s felt small at 5’4, but this is something else— there’s something about the city, the way it’s bigger than life, bursting at the seams, that Patrick sees a lot of Pete in it; maybe Pete’s parents were right to name him after everything this city stood for after all. Pete lives up to the name even in the days where he feels small with depression, curling up into himself, making himself fit in the small spaces between him and the world that had always had this voyeuristic obsession with him. Patrick wishes he could tell Pete that now, wishes he could take back all the times he’s called Pete’s name pretentious; Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz the Third, God what a fucking mouthful he used to say. 

Patrick wishes for a lot of things he could take back.

Kingston is awake, the city’s eyes wide and its long roads still busy with people while Patrick is fighting to even keep his own eyes open right now, the sudden jetlag hitting him out of nowhere. It’s a small miracle from God that it doesn’t take that long to get a cab. All Patrick has to do is raise his hand and a flurry of white taxi’s crowd around him, the faces of the drivers lit up by the dim light of a street lamp, eyes shining. Patrick sees Pete in the shadows of their faces if he squints enough— and this may or may not because he sees Pete in everyone, he hasn’t thought about it and its implications.

Patrick chooses the nearest cab from him and the rest immediately disperse to prey on the next unsuspecting tourist, leaving just as quickly as they had arrived. By the time Patrick’s thrown his backpack, all that he has, into the backseat before him, the street is empty and Patrick feels a calm settle over him; he’s alone, he’s used to this, this is something he knows. It’s dramatic; Pete would have written something like that in a blog post or on scraps of paper which will be hidden underneath Patrick’s pillow while Patrick slept and dreamed.

“Where to?” the driver asks, interrupting his thoughts, eyes meeting his from the rearview mirror. His car smells fresh, smells like the sea mixed with the pine tree car freshener with a hint of cigarette smoke underneath it all sticking to the leather seats. The AC was cranked up to the highest level and the sun wasn’t in sight but Patrick could still feel his sweat rolling down his face, underneath his clothes, leaving his shirt sticking uncomfortably to his skin; Jamaica is also as warm as pictures make it out to be, an eternal summer in this place even when there’s no sunlight. Patrick’s skin was burning up and he was sweating; why does it still feel so cold?

Patrick fumbles to bring out the piece of paper in his pocket that’s been burning a hole into his jeans the whole time, the acute awareness of it made Patrick imagine his skin was burning. It was a relief to be able to bring it out and share it with the driver, like this crumpled piece of paper with the messy handwritten scrawl of an address was something secret— and well, the truth is: it was. Nobody knew that Patrick was here except for like, two other people.

The driver nods without a word and immediately begins to drive through the city, buildings blurring into a flurry of colors that blend into the same thing beneath Patrick’s eyelids. Patrick breathes through his nose and exhales through his mouth, closing his eyes and letting himself pretend he was still in the US, like he didn’t just go on this crazy trip. He finds himself thumbing the piece of paper, the ink was fading now from Patrick rubbing on it since Chicago. His thumb continuously grazing on the rough paper like it could grant him three wishes when Patrick only needs one wish; he knows that much, but he doesn’t know what he would wish for, hasn’t thought that far yet.

Beneath closed eyelids, Patrick’s mind races with the blog entry Pete made just a few days ago:

_ There is the possibility that FOB will play again without me, or I _ ** _W_ ** _ ill be a part of _ ** _I_ ** _ t when everyone i _ ** _S_ ** _ on t _ **H** _ e same page. It is no one's fault, and there is no animosity a _ ** _BO_ ** _ ut the decisio _ ** _N(E)_ ** _ . _

_ Kingston _

Patrick was hurt. He’d been angry at first, sure, his face had turned red, his voice loud enough to fill the whole room as he demanded where Michael had seen it while everyone else tried not to meet his eyes. Patrick had been so full of this great big anger that he felt like his chest was going to explode with the feeling as his voice towered over everyone.

When nobody told him, he locked himself in the venue’s bathroom, opening his phone, and realizing that it hadn’t been that hard to find, it felt like the whole world was talking about it: the great downfall of Fall Out Boy— not that anyone seemed to care about them that much these days if the ticket sales of Soul Punk were anything to go by. Patrick had wanted his fist to connect with something at that moment, Pete’s jaw or the nearest wall. Patrick wanted to do something reckless, throw his fists up and fight whatever god that kept pushing shit into his life whenever Patrick thought things were looking up.

Patrick was angry, but when he was all alone in his hotel room that night, when time had passed, all he felt was hurt. Hurt that everything, the fractured nine year friendship, a ghost of what it was, can’t even be reduced to talking to each other through their lawyers to sort whatever mess Pete was planning on making now.

It was scary, it’s this thing that Patrick never expected from Pete, who despite everything, has always claimed he was the band’s number one fan, who’s claimed he can’t live without them, who, and Patrick is ashamed to admit that this next one was the one that hurts him the most, was the one that claimed he was always going to be Patrick’s best friend.

Underneath all the words, Patrick couldn’t help but wonder if Pete had actually meant it or if Pete was faking it and exaggerating for the airwaves and the pixel screens of people waiting with their breaths held for anything, _ anything _, that they could get their hands on about where Pete had been for the past few months. It’s still a mystery until now, Pete disappearing for a good half of a year, only appearing to pull the rug from beneath everyone’s feet, pull on loose teeth while everyone slept, and signing off with nothing but a Kingston, like he wasn’t even Pete Wentz anymore.

Patrick had tried calling Pete, tried texting, tried emailing, he’d even tried calling Pete’s mom and he still remembers her voice, the soft careful way she had spoken to Patrick like he was sixteen again, standing outside her doorstep, on their worn door mat, dragged to their home after school by Pete who was talking a hundred miles a second about how Patrick was his golden ticket, how Pete’s got it right this time. Pete’s mom had looked at Patrick then and she had spoken to Patrick like he didn’t know what he was getting himself into (she was right). 

It was Pete’s mom who told him Pete was in Kingston, Jamaica. Patrick figures that if there was anybody in the world who knew Pete as much as he did, maybe even more, then it would be his mom.

After that, everything was a lot easier. Patrick had found what _ WISHBONE _ hours after hours reading Pete’s blogpost over and over again, scouring through Google News for any hints of Pete’s location, and TripAdvisor for any place that Pete could have ended up in. It was nearing 5 AM when he finally found the dance hall, deep in downtown Kingston, right there in between a laundry shop and what might be a sex shop but Patrick can’t be too sure about that one, but _ WISHBONE _was there, and it looked like nothing special, looked like any old building, but this— this is where Pete’s been for the past few months and so it means something to Patrick. It’s some hole in the wall dance hall that’s been open for years now as evidenced by the lines of graffiti outside its doors and the peeling paint, but Patrick can imagine it when it’s full, the way Pete would glow in the dark when the strobe lights would hit him, it looked just like all those basement shows they used to play in, back when everything was— 

Partrick frowns when he notices that he had been digging his nails into his thighs, this sharp cutting pain dulled down by his jeans. Patrick catches himself before he slips into a nervous breakdown right here in the backseat and he neatly folds the address back into a square and keeps it in his pocket for safekeeping. It’s a faded receipt that was either from Target or some half a thousand dollar restaurant he didn’t remember going to. There’s some sort of lyric there, this sort of theme that’s been going on in his life ever since the band sort of split up; it’s the contrast between the sweet comforts of rockstar life and the suburban, small-town lifestyle they all grew up on. Patrick makes a mental note of it; these were how lyrics started from him, organized and thought through unlike Pete’s stream of consciousness; not that it was a bad thing, everything that came from Pete’s mind had always been worth a shot

Patrick then stores the thought it into the tiny little mental compartment under things he’ll think about once this is all over. Well, whatever this is. Patrick still doesn’t know what he’s doing here exactly.

The car halts into traffic and Patrick sighs to himself as another imaginary drawer opens in his mind, the one he had labelled: _ FOR WHEN IN JAMAICA _and began to work on the thoughts he promised himself he’d face when he was here. Patrick couldn’t tell how long the trip to the dance hall could have lasted, it could have taken hours, the driver bringing them to winding roads and back alleys, and Patrick wouldn’t have noticed— too busy lost in his own thoughts, coming up with different plans for when and if he finds Pete, and back-up plans, and a back-up plan for the back-up plan. By the time he’s in Plan M, the car had halted in front of what looked like a warehouse; nondescript and grey, concrete walls with artistic graffiti lining the sides; this is Wishbone. Patrick pays the driver, fumbling with the foreign money for a second to the amusement of the old man, and thanks him just before he left.

Patrick takes a breath before entering, feeling like this is a lot of what he would have felt like if he were a tiny bit more adventurous when he had been younger, sneaking into clubs like the rest of his classmates had during the weekends. He went to gigs, but basement shows never really asked for ID, not even for Patrick who had always turned up there in the ugliest too-big clothes and his baby fat still clinging to his cheeks.

Patrick stumbles into the dance hall, tripping on air, his legs suddenly weak with anxiety, but all his thoughts halt into this one thing: he could see what had caught Pete’s eye about this place. The room was half-filled with large speakers, the source of where the thumping trap music Patrick could feel down to his bones. The people there was this eclectic mix of the most pretentious art student snobs, the kids who can quote by heart the deep cuts of whatever punk band and contemporary musical they were listening to, the weirdo hippies with makeup even more dramatic than what Pete had worn in any of their music videos; the people were dressed like they were attending some red carpet event, the next person looking even more outrageous than the last. Patrick gets this, gets why Pete would run away to this place; it’s the perfect place to lose yourself.

Patrick is pushing the mess of sweaty bodies, it felt like everyone was here. Patrick felt fear rise up his throat, making it hard to breathe how was he going to find Pete in this ocean of people. Soon, Patrick was the one being pushed by the motion, farther and farther away from the dance hall’s entrance where he was hoping to catch Pete come in, but nearer to the stage where a man was hyping the crowd up to scream and slam their feet to the ground, the music drowned by laughter and dancing.

In the mayhem of it all: the darkness pierced by the neon lights of the disco ball in the center, of the deafening music, of the crowd that was merging into this one being, Pete is the one who finds Patrick.

“Patrick?” Pete’s voice comes from behind him, and Patrick hesitates, afraid of what he’ll see. Because this might be the mission, this is the fight Patrick’s chosen, but now that he’s coming face to face with it he’s scared of it ending before it starts, when the other side won’t even let him fight, won’t even let him try. Pete could take one look at Patrick, rightly think that Patrick had no right to disturb him from this life he’s chosen, and then it will be all over for Patrick.

It would be the end for the both of them.

But when he turns to face Pete, he’s met with the same brown eyes he’s used to seeing, so familiar now he knows he’s seen them in his dreams if he could remember them so vividly until now. Pete’s a little bit skinnier, his cheeks hollowed in, eyebags weighing his eyes down, and he was darker than Patrick remembered, a deep tan that glowed like his skin had drank in all the sunlight from this place, his hair was longer too, knotted into the dreadlocks he’s seen a younger Pete wear from the pictures his mom kept of the summers the Wentz’s had stayed in Jamaica.

Pete was summer in human form, what you would get if you humanized the sun into the body of a man: just a little too human with the way Pete’s t-shirt hung from his shoulders too big and the patch of facial hair he missed while shaving, but Patrick was so, so blinded all of a sudden.

“Patrick?” Pete repeats, just a little louder and Patrick swallows the lump in his throat.

“Hi,” Patrick starts and he suddenly doesn’t know what to say, he’s gone past all the back-up plans in his head and he never even considered the idea that he could be left speechless in front of Pete; this was Pete, Jesus, they used to talk for hours on the phone back then to Patrick’s mom’s annoyance when he would hog the phone line just to make Pete laugh a little.

“What are you doing here?” Pete asks quietly, and it’s not like everything has grown softer around them for Patrick to hear, there’s still chaos and loud music and people dancing next to them, but all of Patrick’s focus is on Pete.

“I—” Patrick starts and it’s so, so hard to speak. It’s never been hard to talk to Pete before, Patrick’s always figured it would be like riding a bike, they could just pick off from where they last ended, but a fight in the middle of the dance floor might not be what he was thinking of. “I wanted to talk to you.

“Also, I wanted to catch your set,” Patrick adds belatedly when Pete doesn’t reply, digging his hands deep into his pocket where he squeezes them into fists. Patrick’s desperately wishing he had a drink in his hands just so his hands had something to do.

Pete’s face is unreadable, unmoving and it’s an actual trick of the light because of the spotlight dancing on his face right now, the colors changing; it’s red and then Patrick blinks and then his face is yellow and then he blinks again and it’s blue. It stays blue for three heartbeats before it’s shadowed by darkness.

Pete’s face was closed off and it was something new. Patrick wonders if Pete had gotten better at pushing people away or if he was closing it off to Patrick for once. Even during the worst times, Pete had always shown Patrick every single thing he felt, the mess of feelings tangled inside of him like yarn, even when Patrick had been the one who kept pulling at it, the imaginary stitches over Pete’s heart, until the thread had come loose and Pete was left a mess of emotions on the floor between them.

When Pete speaks, the spotlight hits the side of his face and Patrick imagines a half-halo there on Pete’s head, “My gig starts in five minutes,” Pete answers flatly, eyes not meeting Patrick’s. “It ends somewhere around 2 AM.”

“I’ll wait,” Patrick says softly even though Pete didn’t ask, even though Pete didn’t wait for a response, already walking away, keeping a distance between them that should have defied the laws of science and space in the cramped dance floor.

Pete walks up to the DJ booth and he greets the crowd, back to normal, but Patrick knows he’s not; there’s the tell-tale tightness in his shoulders and his hard jaw, the light in his eyes missing. The crowd doesn’t notice though and they reply with a deafening roar, the girls are screaming, the boys are pumping fists in the air, everyone’s eyes are fixed on Pete it’s like the whole universe is revolving around him. Patrick watched in wide-eyed awe, he knows people love Pete, but it’s different when he’s on the stage next to Pete and when he’s here next to the crowd, he could hear every single thing that Pete brings out of people: the way the girl next to Patrick had said “you have my heart” and she had whispered it, not for Pete to hear, it didn’t even look like she was aware she had said it aloud, like she didn’t know she was spilling out her emotions right now here on the dance floor; the two boys in front of him that hold hands, their grip strong and confident and sweaty, bravery in the darkness and Pete’s words; and there’s a lurch in Patrick’s chest because Pete’s made of fucking magic and he’s forgotten about that.

Patrick watches Pete the rest of the night, resuming his spot next to the wall, and he listens to the remixes Pete makes, watches the focused wrinkle of his eyebrows and the way he bites his bottom lip. Nobody pays attention to Pete the same way they had done earlier, but they dance to his songs, dance to the beat Pete is commanding their bodies to follow without even realizing it.

At some point, Pete calls someone up to the stage with him, this girl Pete had introduced as Bebe to the roar of a crowd that was already familiar with her face. Bebe had smiled, this wide, cutting smile at the loud cheers; she was the mirror to Pete in the way Patrick had never been; like her body ran on the limelight and screams from everyone in the dance hall when Patrick had always wanted to hide in the shadows. Patrick watches as Pete blended in with the darkness in a way he never had the chance to in Fall Out Boy as soon as Bebe took to the stage and began to sing a song.

Bebe’s voice sounded a lot like what drinking black coffee felt like, and it rang over the throbbing, sloppy bass lines that crashed over Patrick’s body like waves. Patrick was speechless; trying to turn the sound waves into brain waves in his head. It wasn’t anything like the things Pete had done back in Fall Out Boy. Somehow, Pete was able to catch all those fleeting but deep cutting moments in his Jamaica summer trips he’s always talked about and then had turned it into a song.

Patrick remembers one night, looking out the airplane window, while everyone had been asleep as they passed over the Carribean sea, Pete had smiled at him, this loose and sleepy smile, and told Patrick he’d take him to Jamaica one day to experience everything.

In a way, Patrick guesses Pete did succeed in that, despite the circumstances.

Bebe sings a couple more songs with Pete, but she also laughs and makes conversation with him too while they’re on stage. Pete smiles at her, wide and easy and genuine, and Patrick might miss how Pete used to smile at him like that, how he used to look at Patrick like he was something special. Nobody’s ever looked at him the way Pete had.

The crowd is only getting thicker as the night stretches closer to dawn, and soon Pete is announcing to the crowd this was his last song. The audience jumps and there’s another feeling like an earthquake; despite the bad pop music playing on the speakers right now, this felt a lot like all those punk shows Patrick used to attend when he was barely a teenager, this was how Fall Out Boy shows must have felt if Patrick had been in the audience.

Pete finishes up the song and the ground is still shaking and people were still singing loudly along to it even as he began to walk down the stage. When Pete disappears from Patrick’s sight, Patrick pushes himself into the crowd looking for him. Sweaty bodies push against him and there’s this temporary ice cold fear that grips him that he was going to lose Pete again.

But it’s easy to find Pete, there at the bottom of the stage, his eyes reflecting the lights and a small smile on his face as he nodded his head along to the music.

Patrick pushes himself forward harder and trips as he nears Pete, “You were amazing up there, Pete.” Patrick gasps, out of breath, but also genuinely, and he wishes he was good with words the way Pete was, wishes he could tell Pete he felt like the room was full of magic while Pete was up there.

Pete is momentarily surprised, Patrick sees it in the way his eyebrows shoot up. “Oh, you’re still here, I didn’t think...” Pete mumbles and he ducks his head, “Thanks, I guess.”

“Hey, c’mon.” Patrick says in slight frustration even though he had no right to be, grabbing Pete’s wrist when he was about to turn away. “Don’t be weird, please.”

Patrick watches the way Pete purses his lips like Patrick had the right to ask that from him, and he shrugs Patrick’s grip off him gently. “You could have at least told me you were coming,” Pete said.

“You weren’t answering your phone or the emails I sent,” Patrick answered evenly. “Can we get out of here? I can’t hear a thing.”

Patrick watched Pete hesitate, the way Pete seemed to consider him. Since when had Pete Wentz grown up and not faced things impulsively, head-on, with his heart on his sleeve?

“Please,” Patrick says softly and he doesn’t know if Pete even heard him. There’s this part of Patrick that hoped that tonight can be easy, that he and Pete could have talked about better times, remake history and the future, and act like they deserve reminiscing about the good old days.

Pete squeezes his eyes shut and sighs, downing the can of beer in his hand in one go before he nods at Patrick, his jaw locked and set tightly. Pete holds Patrick by the elbow, gingerly like Patrick’s skin was off-limits. Patrick swallows the lump in his throat as Pete drags them out through the back, grabbing a bottle of whatever from the back just before they met the cold, night air; where was the summer heat Patrick thought he felt earlier?

They stand awkwardly underneath the yellow glow of a streetlamp and Patrick shuffles nervously on his feet. Patrick can feel Pete vibrating next to him, electricity in the air. Patrick looks desperately at Pete, but Pete wasn’t even looking at him, his gaze was fixed at the sex shop next door like there was something interesting there.

“So what brings you here?” Pete asks finally breaking the silence, taking a quick swig from the bottle he had grabbed. Pete’s face is pink, in the way Patrick’s seen when he’s had a few drinks too many and his breath smells of alcohol, he had been drinking all night during his set, but he’s warm and he might be opening up to Patrick so it doesn’t matter.

“Your blog post, Pete,” Patrick says a little incredulously, stepping forward a little. “What you did—”

“I’m sorry,” Pete’s shoulders slump taking a step back, closing in on himself, “I was drunk that night and a little sad. But I have you back now, right?”

Patrick is unable to find the words to say, doesn’t even know what he would want to say to Pete. Something about it felt like being kicked in the teeth; Patrick was left speechless, a little numb, cutting pain. They never really did learn how to make small talk with each other; with Pete always spilling out every thought in his head out into the space between them while Patrick had always sang to Pete; that’s how they talked, with Pete’s words, Patrick’s voice, and both their hearts on their sleeves.

“Sorry,” Pete mumbled as the silence hung in the air, “that was stupid,”

“I—” Patrick started, “No— I just don’t know how to— What’s going on with you, Pete? Why did you write it?”

“How long are you staying here for?” Pete asks, not answering his question.

“I— I don’t know,” Patrick admitted, dipping his head so Pete won’t see his eyes, won’t see how Patrick’s looking at him right now, how Patrick isn’t sure if he’d give everything he has up if Pete wouldn’t want to come back with him.

“Because I have another gig again tomorrow,” Pete explains, a little nervous, his voice soft and maybe Patrick was imagining things, but had it trembled? “it’s in some club out of town, though. We can do the sightseeing thing after. You’re a— I guess you’re my guest.”

“I’d love to hear you play again,” Patrick says, meaning it, raising his eyes to meet Pete’s to find Pete looking at him, his bottom lip caught between his teeth. “You’ll tell me what’s going with you?”

“I’ll pick you up from your hotel at eight?” Pete answers, a small smile on his face and Patrick’s heard him say these lines to girls back in Chicago and Hollywood starlets. It felt more than it was when he said it to Patrick though, it was the way Pete was shyly biting his lip, his eyes soft and worried, like Patrick could refuse him. 

“You—” Patrick starts and lets it out before he could hesitate, lets his mouth speak before his brain catches up to him and stop himself, “You can sleep there tonight. I have— I think I have a couch.”

Pete blinks at him and Patrick continues to talk, trying to fill the awkward space between them, way to fuck it up, Patrick thinks dimly, “I just— it’s late, you could come and crash and I won’t mind. I— I got a hotel nearby, it’s only like a few blocks away, I passed by it earlier in the taxi— maybe, maybe a ten minute walk?”

Pete bites his lip and Patrick hopes he’s fighting off a smile with the way his mouth is twitching right now, “Alright,” Pete answers and he finally, finally for the first time that night he smiles with his eyes at Patrick; and there’s fear there, not anger, not sadness, but it’s open and Pete is letting him in.

It should have hurt how easy it was to win Pete back, how it wasn’t exactly the same as before, but easy nonetheless that Pete’s heart was always so big, always so open to let the next person in to break it again and again. Patrick knew that; he was the one who had to sift through Pete’s journal entries, he was there when he saw the revolving door of sort-of girlfriends and sort-of fuckbuddies and sort-of friends, he never thought that it would be him taking advantage of Pete.

* * *

Pete was probably asleep by now, right there behind Patrick’s door while Patrick was lying on top of his bed, shivering a bit from the cold since he gave up one of his pillows and his only blanket to Pete because it seemed fair. Now that he might die of freezing to death in a country that was currently hot enough to give him a nasty tan back in the US, Patrick was starting to think it might not be at all.

But if he could blame how he was still awake and unable to fall asleep at three AM because of the cold, and not because he was thinking of stupid Pete Wentz sleeping right outside his door on his couch, then he would take that.

Patrick was definitely not thinking about Pete; if he still slept with his mouth open, hand on his stomach, if he still smiled in his sleep sometimes, if he still got those nightmares he would wake up from and then proceed to sneak into Patrick’s bunk, who he could be doing that with now—

Patrick groans and rubs his face with his hand, this whole situation was ridiculous. Patrick glares at his door, thick enough to keep them separated, but not enough to keep Patrick from wanting, and he _ wants _, but he doesn’t know what it is yet.

Patrick’s phone vibrates from the bedside table all the way on the other side of the bed, old habits where his mom used to make him keep his phone at least a feet away so he wouldn’t get brain damage from the radio waves or whatever. Patrick was expecting a text from his manager, he did drop out in the middle of a summer tour with barely even a text sent their way, but Patrick was surprised, his heart jumping a little like a teenage girl’s (and he means this in the most respectful way possible), when he saw it was Pete who had texted.

_ U up? _ And Patrick snorts to himself, the way he’s dumbstruck over two stupid words like that.

Patrick doesn’t even hesitate when he replies, _ yeah _. In the dark, it feels the way it did back then in tour vans, and in his bedroom, and in hotel rooms, and even in the same room as Pete when Patrick’s voice has gone raw and tired from a day at the studio but Pete had still wanted to talk to him.

_ Me too, _Pete replies, just as fast as Patrick did.

_ I know that, dumbass, _Patrick thumbs back.

_ Can’t sleep. Wanna go to the rooftop? Bet you haven’t seen the view yet _.

While Patrick was figuring out a response to that, something safe, something careful because this whole thing was so sensitive, Pete sends another text, _ I take back everything I’ve ever said about Chicago. I think this is my favorite city in the world. _

It earns a bark of a laugh from Patrick, surely it was loud enough for Pete to have heard it even from behind the door and Patrick imagines Pete smiling at himself, the smug pull of his lips when he’s managed to make Patrick laugh at one of his dumb jokes.

_ Now I think you’re just goading me for a reaction _

Patrick waits for Pete to text back, and the seconds crawl slowly, the exact opposite of his heart which was beating so, so fast, Patrick was surprised his chest was able to keep it in. There’s a rush to what they’re doing, Patrick feels tiny little pins and needles on his hands where he held his phone, blood rushing to where the skin meets plastic.

Patrick is still waiting for a text back when a knock comes from the door instead.

It feels like they’ve cut to the feeling; Patrick closes his eyes and the past few minutes are these bits and pieces that flash through his mind: dim hotel lights flashing on the sharp smile on Pete’s lips; the quiet, muffled laughter mixed with pants of breath as they climbed up the stairs instead of the elevator because Pete had insisted and Patrick’s always been so easy for him; the way Patrick had only glanced at the sight in front of him: the city line and the stars above him before looking at Pete and thinking, the moon in the Chicago sky, the tall buildings in Jamaica, the blue of the night in New York, the city noise in Tokyo, the tiny little people like ants underneath their feet in whatever city they were in, they were all the same, but the smile on Pete’s face, the easy lift of his lips, that’s new, this sight that Patrick’s always loved even though it looks different now, better.

Now, Pete’s hand was resting over Patrick’s; not like those times when they were hidden in the dark, that split second, when they were just one breath away from being shot up into a world of dizzying spotlights and chants of their names that mixed into something incomprehensible; it’s not like it was a secret, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it kind of touch. Pete’s hand was there, warm and sure, maybe a little sweaty, but his wrist was lining up with Patrick’s and if Patrick focused on it enough, Patrick might be able to feel their hearts beating together in-sync. Pete was talking about something, his fingers sometimes twitching like he was about to pull away, but they stayed there like he was trying to prove a point.

There were millions of reasons why they shouldn’t be here, Patrick can list them all right now. It was going to rain soon, Patrick can feel it in the air, the thick and silence on his skin, humid air making goosebumps spread across to his bare arms. Patrick’s back was starting to hurt, Jesus he was getting too old for this, why does he feel fifty at twenty seven anyway he blames all those years of making sure Pete didn’t do something stupid and the stupid things he’s done himself just to try and impress Pete. There were also the tour bus beds that were probably a safety hazard. The blanket underneath their backs wasn’t thick enough to make the cement to feel any softer. There was the looming idea of heartache in the air too, of another breakup, of another album where Patrick’s all alone and crying and drunk in the studio.

They should be going back or inside, Patrick should be stopping whatever this is before anything happens. But Patrick doesn’t do anything, doesn’t even try to move away from where his shoulders were touching Pete’s. Patrick didn’t know what he was doing at 3 AM, on the rooftop like he was stupid and twenty-one again, just a little bit stupid over Pete Wentz, before all the heartache, before all the hurt, like he still trusted Pete.

Like Pete still trusted him.

The feeling makes something scratch in the back of Patrick’s brain, begging for attention to rise into consciousness, Patrick knows it’s going to hurt but he allows it anyway, and what he remembers is all these summers ago, a tiny little booth in a vegan café where they had all squeezed into: _ where can I go when I want you around. but I can't stand to be around you? _ Patrick smiles at the thought instead of letting a wave of hurt wash over him; Patrick’s tried to separate him and Pete with bedrooms, states, oceans, and where does he end up in the end? Right where he started that’s where.

“Hey, you’re not listening,” Pete whispers into Patrick’s ear, warm breath tickling her which makes Patrick smile widen a little bit, “what are you smiling about?

“Nothing.” Patrick whispered back, voice just as soft.

Pete shifted so he was lying on his side facing Patrick, the smile on his lips, sharp and soft at the same time, showed that he didn’t quite believe Patrick but he’ll humor him anyway. Patrick stared back at Pete for what felt like an eternity, courage slowly gathering from the left side of his chest to travel to his hands. Patrick clumsily grabs at Pete’s hand, the one right next to his, intertwining their fingers the same way they used to do on the backseat of a beat up van when it had lurched to the side of a road too icy, airplanes just before the kick off because Patrick was scared of the sound that the engines made, in the middle of a busy street in Asia that threatened to separate them. Patrick rests their hands on Pete’s stomach, the scratchy fabric of Pete’s hoodie, missing a few washes makes Patrick’s fingers itch.

Pete remains silent, not frozen; his body is still relaxed and his breathing is deep like everything was easy and normal and not weird at all for two men who claimed they hated each other’s guts and meant it a few years ago. Patrick stubbornly holds on though, weird or not, they were best friends, this should be normal, there was a time when this was normal.

When Pete finally opens his mouth, he points up to the sky above them, and Patrick wonders if he knows just how hard that had been for him to do, “Do you see that?”

It’s cheesy to say but Patrick really did look at Pete’s hand instead of whatever he had been pointing at. Pete looked like he was reaching towards the moon, trying to pull it closer to them, lassoing it so that the sun wouldn’t have to rise too soon for the night to end.

“Yeah,” Patrick replied after a long pause, his voice distant, his eyes finally shifting towards to where Patrick was pointing at: a patch of scattered stars that were near the moon, barely there because the sun was going to rise soon, and soon the stars were going to hide away and sleep for the day and dream all the wishes Patrick has given up on.

“I took this elective back in college, it was an um, astrology elective, some sort of introduction thing,” Pete starts, voice quiet as his eyes stayed on the moon, his smile faraway like that Pete was a whole lifetime away from this one on the rooftop right now. Patrick hummed for Pete to continue when it felt like Pete was waiting for a sign Patrick was still with him, the action was hard, Patrick’s throat tightening for some reason.

“I took it way too seriously even though everyone thought it was crazy. I read all the readings and the secondary ones too. What I’m trying to say is that—_ be patient, I’m getting there _—” Pete says with fond exasperation when Patrick began to laugh. Patrick couldn’t help but feel like the inch of space between them felt like galaxies upon galaxies instead and he can’t help but imagine Pete dancing on the moon to the soundtrack of a summer all those years ago, while Patrick was stuck in like, high school math class or whatever. “I’ve never seen that constellation before. I think we should give it a name.”

Patrick blinked at Pete, once, twice, thrice, while Pete remained quiet, the same serious look on his face, his eyebrows scrunched tight and his teeth worrying his bottom lip. “You’re joking, right?”

“Um, no. I’m not.”

"You're joking,” Patrick replied with a groan. “We are _ not _discovering a fucking constellation on my shitty hotel rooftop.”

Pete laughed loudly, a full belly laugh, and Patrick should have told him to be quiet, they weren’t supposed to exist in this moment. If anyone knew about them and this rooftop, some higher being or the janitor downstairs, they’ll stop this and the moment will be ruined forever. But Patrick didn't. Pete was so beautiful.

"I'm serious." Pete insisted but he was laughing, his teeth still catching on the moonlight.

“You’re the worst liar— I said worst, not favorite. Dickhead,” Patrick grumbles, rolling his eyes when Pete began to hum the tune of Mick. "What are you going to say? You’re going to name it after me? You probably do this with all the girls. You’re trying to see if it works on boys too.”

Pete laughed again, louder this time, trying to fill the empty space between them. But when he looked at Patrick, his eyes looked sad. It wasn’t because of what Patrick had said, Pete’s eyes were sometimes like that: misty like they knew something bad was going to happen soon. The dark brown in them, heated just like the whiskey Patrick used to steal from his dad’s cellar, blended quietly into the night behind them and Patrick— he was aching to kiss Pete all of a sudden.

The feeling was out of nowhere, Patrick’s managed to squash it, stamp it down to the cement any chance it tried rearing its ugly head, but somehow it managed to slip through this time. Patrick feels himself moving forward, closer to Pete, closing the space, and he could stop himself, but he didn’t want to.

Patrick rested his forehead on Pete’s, just staring into Pete’s eyes, getting lost into them and he feels all of sixteen and a half all over again. Patrick breathed on Pete’s lips and Pete inhaled the air Patrick exhaled. Pete did the same and for a few short breaths, that’s what they did. It was Pete who did all the weird declarations and metaphors for love, but Patrick can say that this felt like they were living off each other. Patrick’s lungs were full of Pete and the blood in his veins were full of him too, his brain was getting cloudy with it and the thought of Pete. In the back of Patrick’s mind, he thought: _ ‘this is it. it’s here.’ _, not really knowing what this and here were.

Patrick leans in, his eyes fluttering closed, but instead of his mouth finding Pete’s, he feels Pete’s palm on his chest, pushing him away. Patrick opens his eyes, his face warming up in embarrassment when he sees Pete can’t even look at him right now.

“I don’t think we should,” Pete mumbles, still not looking at him.

“I’m sorry,” Patrick says, “I don’t know what I was doing there— what I was going to do.”

They were quiet and Pete sighs heavily, throwing Patrick a look. And Pete had always been the one who talked about the cryptophasia and soulmates and past lives, but Patrick has always secretly prided himself in knowing what Pete was thinking too. It’s not like he can read Pete’s mind or whatever, but he’s always been able to understand Pete’s emotions more than anyone else ever did.

Right now, Patrick knew that look, he knew that look because he knows it's on his face sometimes.

“We better go back inside,” Pete says and Patrick nods slowly in reply.

They go down through the elevator this time, silence hanging between the two of them in the space where their skins don’t touch. Patrick’s insides were squirming right now, just like the way they did back then when he would sing in front of a crowd of barely twenty people, but it felt like oceans and seas were drowning him in that cold, clutching, anxiety.

Patrick squeezes his eyes shut as the elevator drags itself down, taking way too long, and he tries to slow his breathing down. In the middle of the dizzying feeling of losing air and being in the dark, Patrick feels the brush of fingers on the side of his hand.

Patrick opens his eyes and sees Pete looking at him, eyes wide and whiskey brown, open and honest. “It’ll be okay,” is all Pete says, and Patrick believes him, trusts Pete; things could change between them, the hurt cutting deeper as time passes and the more they’re around each other, but things like this can never change.

“Okay,” Patrick whispers back, finding his voice; Pete’s found it for him, always has.

They get back to Patrick’s room and Pete follows him into the bedroom, into the bed; there’s a silent decision in that, as if there was a trade-off to earlier; he won’t let Patrick kiss him but he’d share the same bed as him. They don’t leave any space between them, Pete curls up into himself, his back to Patrick so Patrick can count the faint bumps of his spine through his thin t-shirt. Patrick doesn’t hesitate when he wraps his arms around Pete, finding it easy the way his arms still knew where to go and if Patrick closes his eyes, it’s 2004 again and they’re sharing beds in a motel room as they tour around the country for the first time.

Pete’s breathing slows down into a steady rhythm and Patrick imitates the short inhales and longer exhales as he wills himself to fall asleep. Pete’s always said Patrick was the song, but Pete’s breathing, is this thing that Patrick’s always listened for, leftover nightmares from a time where Patrick was afraid it might stop, but now, it’s this sound that Patrick wishes he could turn into a song instead of an earworm that loops around in his head at nights like this.

When Patrick wakes up, Pete had left nothing but a cold and empty bed and a text on Patrick’s phone that only said _ 8pm, don’t forget _ . Patrick thinks to himself, that this is what it must have felt for Pete all those years ago, when Patrick had left in the middle of the night, in the middle of their friendship that was falling apart, turning his back on Pete not like the way last night where Pete had opened up to him, but to shut him out.

* * *

Pete and Patrick were impulsive, there are four albums and a shitty little mini EP behind them that’s a testament to the rash decisions of a younger Pete and a Patrick who was stupid for him. Pete still had the same wide-eyed, glittering look in his eyes as the time when he looked at Patrick and asked if he wanted to start a band with them (it was a joke, but the way Pete had looked at him seriously and said Patrick was going to make it wasn’t— Patrick only wished that it was the case, re: Soul Punk, but not really because that would mean that he wouldn’t have ended up here).

But back to the point, Patrick was impulsive, but a lot less impulsive than Pete, so Pete usually had to depend on Patrick to keep him under control and at home, instead of maybe like, in Pete’s old high school with a bag full of spray paint he planned on using to vandalize the walls with the stupid obscure poetry he was currently obsessed with (an actual idea Pete had the summer after Patrick graduated highschool; a fit of inspiration and motivation, apparently). And, really, Patrick usually did a good job with that, Patrick can count on one whole hand the times he was able to successfully talk Pete out of one of his crazy ideas (five fingers doesn’t sound like much but Pete was very, very stubborn and determined). Unfortunately, Patrick was only human (and had always did have a soft spot for Pete), so there were times that the both of them had to face the consequences of their stupid choices (Patrick doesn’t have enough bones in his body to count the number of times _ that _has happened).

This night, in particular, was one of the latter.

“Pete, I’m going to fucking kill you.” Patrick said, grabbing Pete’s chin and turning his head towards his to make sure the Pete saw how serious his eyes were. Usually, Patrick was a lot more practical than this, Pete was driving and they were on a stupidly busy road at 10 pm; Patrick usually didn’t want them to die, there was also how Pete’s unaffected grin that was slowly growing wider was further pissing Patrick off. “You didn’t tell me your gig was across the country.”

“Oh, shut up. We used to tour all the time to shitty suburbs in a shitty van. You don’t even have a curfew anymore.” Pete said, lazily hanging an arm around the steering wheel to use the other to pinch Patrick’s arm. “And across the country is a stretch, it’s only like a four hour drive.”

“I doubt you accounted for traffic” Patrick grumbles, his point being emphasized as they halted behind a truck.

“A man needs to make money somehow now that he’s not part of a famous band. ”Pete quips and to distract Patrick, Pete turns the radio volume up as the next song came on, familiar guitar riffs reaching Patrick’s ears; this one Jawbreaker song, Patrick can’t remember the title now. Patrick couldn’t help the smile that was fighting its way to form on his face as the sounds of DIY west coast punk began filling the car. The smile, it was from a memory, was from the summer Patrick had turned seventeen, when he and Pete would lie with their stomachs on the floor in Patrick’s room or Pete’s garage, sharing a pair of earphones between them, disrupting the silence only to say: _ this one, this is what I want our band to sound like _ or _ Shut up, Pete, I’m not wearing fucking eyeliner. _They would do that for hours, until the moon was high up and they were lying in the dark because they were both too lazy to turn on the lights, already comfortable with all the darkness and each other; they stayed like that until one of their mom’s found them and would send the other home. None of the songs ever sounded like the ones they listed down on a sheet of paper from Patrick’s Geometry notebook or the loose paper behind Pete’s textbooks and Patrick only ever wore eyeliner a couple of times, but those moments with Pete still felt like something special.

Patrick looks over at Pete and Pete is smiling too, recognizing the song. Patrick lets the fight go.

It was well past 11 PM when they finally take a right into a more quiet road with three other cars who quickly took the exit after, leaving Pete and Patrick alone on the road. There was probably still another hour left to the drive and Patrick wasn’t letting Pete go over the speed limit no matter how much he was getting motion sickness.

“Pete?” Patrick asks as he peers outside the window, breaking the silence thirty minutes later. “Where are we?”

“Um—” Pete starts and Patrick would want to let it go, really, Pete was sleepy and sure he had been distracted a little bit by the radio, but Pete should know these roads. Pete’s the one who’s been living here for the past couple of months, shutting everyone, even Patrick, out. 

“Pete. This is a beach.” Patrick said, his voice was calm, but his frustration was seeping through it anyway. “And I know what you’re going to say— Jamaica is just one big giant beach, and first of all, you know that’s not true, second, there is no way your gig is here.”

“Er—”

“Stop the car before we even get more lost.”

Pete slows the car down into a halt by the side of the road and Patrick lets his eyes adjust to the darkness, taking it in that, yes, they were next to a beach, Patrick hasn’t seen the city in almost an hour and a half now. Patrick groaned and buried his face in his fists, rubbing at his face until it turned pink and the rings around his eyes were red. Patrick ignored the whispered _ fuck _, Pete had whispered to himself next to him. Patrick was admittedly a little scared, both of their phones were dead and their gas was running low in the middle of nowhere with no visible signs telling them where the hell they were.

“I know I took the correct turn.” Pete insisted hopelessly and Patrick scowled, unable to ignore him this time. 

“Can’t you just say sorry for once, Pete?” Patrick snaps with too much bite, not looking at Pete. Okay, that was uncalled for, everything wrong behind them is at least half of Patrick’s fault, and God knows he would rather just sweep everything under the rug, but Patrick can’t help but let the frustration of the past few months bubble out of him.

“I— that’s not fair,” Pete says quietly, his body tensing up, the air around them changing.

“Fair? Fair? We’re talking about fighting fair now?” Patrick asks, feeling that old kind of anger creeping up his neck, this side that only Pete ever brought out of him; this senseless rage that quickly lets loose like a forest fire. Patrick suddenly couldn’t control his mouth, letting the spitfire fury take control of him, “You know what’s not fair? You ripping me out of the middle of a summer tour that was failing, Pete. I’m going to lose so much money because you can’t think about anyone else but yourself. I thought you might have grown up even a little bit, but I come here and find you playing at this stupid DJ career in Jamaica where you can’t even get to your fucking gigs without getting lost. You always get what you want, and now I’m here, are you fucking happy? Is that fair?”

“Are you finished?” Pete asks after a long silence, his voice flat, but his mouth trembled with the sort of anger that was hiding beneath his skin. “Are you done talking shit about everything I’ve decided to do on my own? If we’re talking about growing up, I thought that maybe you would have grown out of being a controlling piece of shit.”

“Fuck you,” Patrick says and raises his voice when Pete opens his mouth to interrupt him, “I’m talking now. I’m going to say my own words now and not your own. I have every right to be a piece of shit, I’m here fixing your mess after that stupid blogpost. I was trying to forget about the band, trying to make people forget about it, but you ruined it.”

Pete stares at him in disbelief, “I wrote the blog post for me, I was thinking about me—“

“And when do you not—“

“Let me finish,” Pete shouts, and Patrick is temporarily blown by the anger in his voice, Patrick remains silent. “I flew here so that I could finally be away from you. I wrote that blog post so that all of you guys, you, Joe, and Andy, you guys can finally move on from being part of Fall Out Boy. I wrote that blog post so that I can finally be free, and Patrick I feel like I can breathe here.”

“Pete, you broke up the band—”

“We were already broken up—“

“Because you made that blogpost—“

“No, because you left in the middle of the night and left me a letter, Patrick. This mess is all your fault. Everything went to shit because of you, you chose to give up instead of fighting for us. I’ve never run away from anything, I’ve always faced everything head-on. Why can’t _ you _ say sorry?

“You— it’s been three years, Patrick,” Pete chokes out, wringing his shaking hands, “and you still don’t see how it’s not your fault? That it was you who chose to—“

“It wasn’t! It’s your fault because you kept making a mess of everything and it stopped being about the music. Fall Out Boy ended up becoming this trashy multi-chaptered tabloid novela with our music as the soundtrack to it. It’s _ your _ fault, Pete. And now here you are, playing shows in some shitty hole in the wall, pretending you’re doing well, acting like you’re better than who you were, but you’re fucking not. I am so tired of taking care of you. I wish I didn’t go here. I wish I just left you alone. I wish I didn’t care about you anymore. I’m tired of you.” Patrick’s throat protests at the loud volume being ripped from it.

Patrick immediately wishes he could take it back when the deafening silence follows. Pete doesn’t reply and Patrick can’t look away. Patrick sees Pete in black and white; it was all or nothing now; fight or flight; the hero and the villain— but who was who in this situation anyway, lines in the sand have been crossed and now they blur together, messed up so Patrick doesn’t know where he ended and where Pete began.

Pete stares straight ahead out of the windshield, into the ocean, gaze heavy and focused, and Patrick is about to say something, anything that will get a reaction out of him just so he would say something. But just as Patrick was about to open his mouth, Pete turns to look at him and Patrick feels like a bolt of lightning has struck him, piercing him until underneath his skin, all the muscle, bone, and tissue, piercing him straight there on the left side of his chest where his heart was.

“I wish,” Pete starts, his voice calm and steady, “I never found you.”

Pete leaves— he leaves quietly except for the loud bang of the door and this is how the world is going to end; it’s not actually with a quiet whimper like people say; it’s the big bang again except it’s a car door that destroys everything.

Patrick knows Pete doesn’t mean last night in the dance hall, finding Patrick in the dark and glow of neon lights and loud music. Pete doesn’t even mean almost a decade ago when Joe had found Patrick in that Borders— it had been Joe who found him and brought him into the mercurial orbital of Pete Wentz. Patrick knows Pete doesn’t mean any of those things— what Pete had meant, what he really meant, was that he wishes he never looked at Patrick and found something special in him. Pete had wished he had looked at Patrick and seen him for what he was that day on Patrick’s doorstep, just a sweaty little boy who looked so small in the mess of what he thought were his best clothes that he only wore to impress Pete fucking Wentz from Arma Angelus and Racetraitor. What Pete really meant was that he wishes he never found something special in Patrick, something golden, or whatever that thing was that Patrick had in him that made Pete forgive him over and over and over again; this bad habit that Pete can’t kick.

The feeling— the feeling of the realization is this hurt Patrick’s never felt before, not even that time when he left during the hiatus. This— this whatever this was, it felt like the insides of his chest was being ripped to shreds, and Patrick opens his mouth to scream in pain and he doesn’t, he doesn’t know if he doesn’t scream or if he can’t hear it; he just feels so numb. Patrick kicks the glove compartment in frustration, Patrick punches the dashboard, uncaring if he’ll trigger the emergency airbags and be suffocated to death; he just wants to break something to see himself in it.

Breathing heavily, tears streaming down his face, Patrick looks out the window, into the night sky. The stars in the sky didn’t look like tiny little planets anymore that could have his name on it if he wanted them to, they were bullet holes on a concrete wall in the shade of blue their old tour bus was; a goddamn shoot out here in the middle of summer, in the heart of Jamaica, in this beach where something magical could have happened if he and Pete hadn’t been doomed from the start.

Patrick lets out a choked whimper, trying to hold back the cries his lungs wanted to exhale out of his system. He squeezes his eyes shut and lays his head on the car seat headrest. His heartbeat sounds way too loud, ringing in his ears above the silence of the car. It doesn’t feel like a victory, it doesn’t make Patrick feel better at all. Saying it makes him feel worse, a bad taste in his mouth like all the shit Pete had dared him to eat when they were broke and unable to afford anything but cup noodles.

Patrick wipes his eyes and when he opens them, his gaze falls on the glove compartment that had popped open in his fit of blind rage and hurt. Inside it was a piece of paper, the edges a little worn, the folds of its creases deep and lined like it had been unfolded and folded a lot of times. Patrick reaches to close it, leaning forward, and he sees the piece of paper a little more clearly; on the side, it read Pete’s name in Patrick’s handwriting.

Patrick remembers the letter, or rather, the night more than the actual letter writing part. This is the letter, the stupid letter, that started it all. Patrick’s hands shake when he reaches for it, he doesn’t even feel bad for opening it; he can probably recite what’s on it anyway, or at least, the version that he remembers from all his nightmares. The letter is devoid of any actual emotion except anger and exhaustion, like the band was more of a bad marriage falling apart than this collective of boys who used to love each other.

Patrick was beginning to think that he had been too cold and too empty, when he reaches a poem there at the bottom of the page, this piece of paper ripped from a book that Patrick only remembers now. Patrick had forgotten about this part, always focusing on the anger instead of the confusing mix of feelings that always moved from his stomach, to his throat, to his lungs, and ribcages where he usually felt all his fears and love; they were the same thing to Patrick. Patrick remembers now, the dog-eared poetry book Pete had lent him, Patrick still hasn't given it back until now, but he knows it's there in one the boxes full of old Fall Out Boy stuff hidden in his attic; he never returned it to Pete because he was hoping Pete would be the one to return to him, asking for his book, coming back into Patrick's life without asking him to because he can't ever have the bravery for that sort of thing. 

_I'll give you my heart to make a place _  
_for it to happen, evidence of a love that transcends hunger._  
_Is that too much to expect? That I would name the stars_  
_for you? That I would take you there? The splash_  
_of my tongue melting you like a sugar cube? We've read_  
_the back of the book, we know what's going to happen._  
_The fields burned, the land destroyed, the lovers left_  
_broken in the brown dirt. And then's it's gone._  
_Makes you sad. All your friends are gone. Goodbye_  
_Goodbye. No more tears. I would like to meet you all_  
_in Heaven._

Patrick reads the poem and when he had ripped it off, he had thought the words were biting, angry, hurtful; Patrick wanted each word to feel like a fist into Pete’s gut. But reading it now, a couple of years later, all Patrick can see in the words was how much he had loved Pete then and how that love had hurt; Patrick had loved Pete so much but the feelings were difficult to understand, were painful for him, so he had hurt Pete instead and Pete had hurt, Patrick knows that because even though he disappeared that night, he still read all the trashy tabloids about Pete falling into the beds of random starlets and into concrete sidewalks outside bars, had followed Pete’s twitter like it was somehow the same as having Pete right next to him telling Patrick every random thought that came into his brain, had fucking ached and gone worried when Pete all but suddenly disappeared off the face of the earth.

Patrick loved Pete. He’s this guy Patrick’s loved for almost a decade now, not in love with because he’s never taken that leap and fallen, but he’s always sort of loved Pete, those times when he was eighteen and thought what it was, twenty-three and realizing he didn’t know anything about it, twenty-five when he learned that love was the thing that’s going to hurt him the most; he understands now why Pete used to spill his heart into journal pages and internet blog posts, there’s too much of it but there’s nowhere to go to.

Patrick breathes heavily, calming himself down. He looks out the window and he sees Pete’s figure sitting on the sand; his back tense and shoulders drawn into himself. Patrick aches all of a sudden; they’ve wasted so much time, they’ve hurt each other too much.

It’s midnight now, the day split into the morning and night, this in-between where Patrick is sure anything can happen if he wanted it to. Patrick thinks of the delicacy of wishbones and the fragility of this moment; Pete and him have been holding onto opposite ends for the past few years without actually pulling, waiting for the moment it would snap and someone can win, where it would break, not just the bone but a heart too, and someone can get a wish; they’ve tiptoed around each other, kept a safe distance, they haven’t closed the space between them, they just held on, waiting for that moment that can never come.

But right now, Patrick doesn’t want to do those things anymore, he pulls, makes the decision he should have made years ago instead of pulling away.

Patrick steps out the car and is met with the salty air invading his nose, making his eyes tear up. Patrick walks towards Pete’s form down near the shore, his feet sinking into the sand, Patrick wonders if he’ll disappear underneath it before he even got to Pete. If he would die without Pete ever knowing the truth.

But Patrick gets there with both legs intact, and he stands next to Pete, he takes a long breath before asking, “Can I sit here?”

Pete doesn’t respond or even look at him, but Patrick sees the way his shoulders were tense and the way his arms had tightened as he brought his legs closer to his chest. Patrick takes the silence as half a win and sits down. The sand is soft underneath him and he lets it sift through from between his fingers.

“The ocean is so blue here,” Patrick says softly, “the air isn’t heavy like in LA and Chicago, the people are nicer. I get why you would want to stay here. It’s like the feeling you get when it’s summer break, except it’s endless.”

“The stars look like city lights, and the city lights glow like stars under your feet,” Pete adds, just as soft, and Patrick doesn’t know where this conversation is going, but he gets it; he understands what’s happening between him and Pete right now even if his brain doesn’t.

“When I think about the plane trip I took to Jamaica,” Pete continues, “I think how I had just been one full tank away to freedom. I’ve never— I’ve never felt more free. I’m sorry about the blogpost. You’re right, I’m selfish and all those other things, I only wrote it because I knew you’d come and save me.”

“From what?”

“Everything, mostly myself, a bit of the band,” Pete mumbles, “you— you were right. I’m— I wish I didn’t need you the way I do. I wish I wasn’t such a burden and—“

“Pete,” Patrick interrupts him firmly, “I’m sorry for what I said. I didn’t mean anything of it. We— we just know the best ways to hurt each other. I don’t— Pete, I love you, you’re my best friend. I’m supposed to be here for you, it was in the job description when I joined the band when I was sixteen. I don’t resent you at all for any of it,”

“Not even a little bit?” Pete asks doubtfully, his bottom lip popping out as he frowned deeply.

“Okay, maybe a little bit. Towards the end. But I was a dick too. I should have cared more about my best friend than the music. Sorry I was a control freak and a bad friend.”

“I was a bad friend too,” Pete mumbles. “And I can’t really— I won’t ever make it the way we did back then. It was all because of Joe and Andy and your voice that we got so far. I could have left and it would have been better for the band. I was telling the truth in that part— I want you guys to move on without me.”

“My voice?” Patrick says gently, “Pete, I was singing your words. You were the band’s heart. I was a piece of shit for saying that. I shouldn’t have— I think the DJ thing is great, no, I’m serious. Last night at Wishbone, I thought how you looked so alive. I never saw you that happy, Pete. And the sounds you were making? The bass line? You were magic. It was like I was meeting you again for the first time. You— you never stop surprising me. Pete, you never gave yourself enough credit.”

“Neither did you,”

Patrick smiles, he can’t help it, the tug on his lips that grows wider when Pete hesitantly smiles back, “Okay, so we’re both bad friends and we both don’t know our worth and we’ve both hurt each other; we’re a match made in heaven.”

Pete laughs and he rests his head on Patrick’s shoulder. There’s a quiet calm that settles over them; it’s the calm right after the storm in reverse that nobody ever really talks about, sure there’s disaster everywhere, hearts on the floor, seconds that’s been wasted, a few hundred dollars burned between them, but there’s Pete’s skin on his skin even after everything that’s happened. They weren’t fully healed yet, Patrick knows he’s going to pick at his broken heart and take it out on Pete, and Pete’s going to do the same to him, but this time, they wouldn’t have to run away anymore, they can’t, there’s not enough gas left on that car, not enough space and hurt in the world enough to keep them away from each other now. The only thing stopping them was them.

“Do you think we can ever go back to the way it was? Turn back time and pretend it never happened?” Patrick asks, and it doesn’t sound hopeful. It sounds selfish that he was asking Pete to forget everything Patrick’s done to hurt him.

“Why do you want to go back to that?”

“I just want to go back to a time where I didn’t hurt you, where I didn’t leave you. I don’t know— I shouldn’t have left, but I don’t know if I should have come back either, I know I should walk away, I’m scared we’re just making the same mistakes, Pete. But I miss you, I missed you so much.”

Patrick has pulled at the wishbone, and he knows it because there’s a physical ache in his heart, and he thinks he got what he’s finally wished for in this moment. The waves crash loudly against the rocks, sounding like the soft explosion of bottle rockets just as they reach the sky and fall apart into dust, “Feels like the world is ending, feels like the earth’s crumbling,” Pete says, not answering Patrick’s question. “Let’s swim?”

“It's high tide. We can die, Pete.”

“The only thing I haven’t done yet,” Pete said, a distant smile on his face, “is die.”

The knots in his chest, the mess of emotions of leftover anger and sadness, loosen and Patrick exhales. Throwing Pete a small smile to show he wasn’t angry anymore, and Pete returns it to show he wasn’t sad anymore either. “Quoting your own lyrics is a little pretentious,” was all Patrick said, words biting already without the sting because he and Pete can talk about it all later.

Patrick was untying his shoelaces and kicking his shoes off, and there’s that summertime magic again where it feels like every moment between him and Pete can last longer. This was another stupid idea to the already long list of stupid ideas Patrick has made in this trip (although, you can barely call it that at this point, he still hasn’t answered any of his manager’s calls or booked a return flight). Patrick was just as weak to everything Pete asked of him the same way Pete was to him; they’re made of the same thing, this stupid messy kind of love that leaves Patrick impulsive and reckless and leaves Pete just a little too soft and forgiving.

The ocean was calling them, waves crashing against the rocks, and Patrick swore that this place was magic, it was the type of place he’d dream of where he’d see mermaids, and he and Pete would kiss under the moon.

“Excited?” Pete asks appearing next to Patrick, a boyish, giddy smile on his face as he lifted the bottom of his t-shirt. Parick’s eyes wander over the curves and sharp lines of Pete’s body while his head was covered, admiring Pete’s naked, golden skin; Jamaica’s sun had been kind to him.

“Did I ever tell you? My family rarely went to the bea— what the hell are you doing?” Patrick asked incredulously as Pete rolled down his jeans, eyes wide. “Pete, it’s literally freezing. You weren’t serious about swimming— were you? I thought we would just wet our feet a little,”

“You’ve seen me naked, Patrick,” Pete said, rolling his eyes as his jeans fell into the pile on top of his t-shirt and shoes.

“I don’t have a problem with _ that _.” Patrick said indignantly, and then adding quickly “I just don’t want you to die.”

“If you don’t want to swim,” Pete said continuing to strip, pointedly toeing off his socks so he was only left in his boxers, “then you don’t have to.”

Patrick scowls and sees that Pete was serious about this, Pete keeps glancing towards the ocean, this sparkle in his eyes that didn’t come from the moonlight and Patrick has taken a lot from Pete, maybe he’ll give him this one thing this one time. Patrick sighs and grumbles underneath his breath and proceeds to take of his shorts. Patrick hesitates a second before he takes his shirt off anyway because this is Pete, Pete who has always looked at him with this awe-struck look on his face like Patrick couldn’t be real and in a band with him. If Patrick had caught Pete’s eyes roaming over his body, he didn’t call Pete out on it, it was only fair.

“I’ll race you?” Pete asks with wide eyes and Patrick couldn’t help but feel that getting his heart broken wouldn’t be such a bad thing if Pete looked at him like this all the time. Pete was something else, somehow still being able to make Patrick a little breathless as he stood there in his stupid bright red Iron Man boxers. Patrick is slow to reply, too busy being stupid over Pete, when Pete laughs, a bark of a laugh and runs without Patrick, knowing Patrick would be there behind him. Patrick laughs too, a wide grin that hurts his mouth and took off towards Pete, to the sea.

Patrick’s arms swing wildly next to him as he runs, the stinging, salty air invading his nose and making his eyes water. Pete looks back at Patrick to grin at him and scream something that was lost to the wind. Patrick laughs in reply and his breath catches in his throat, he gulps in air and wheezes for breath. God, he was out of shape, but his laughter was wild and loud, nobody can hear him, they had the place all to themselves: him, Pete, and the moon.

When Patrick’s feet touched the water, a scream of delighted surprise was ripped from his mouth; it was cold, colder than what he was expecting, and he ran faster into the water to ignore it. It was a freezing, biting cold and he could already feel his teeth starting to chatter. In the faint moonlight, Patrick sees goosebumps jump on his skin; it was never this cold back in Chicago, never this cold when Patrick’s with Pete. When he was waist-deep in the cold, he sees Pete hesitantly toeing the water.

“Pete, let’s go,” Patrick shouts impatiently. Patrick knew, despite the numerous evidence of Pete stripping down to nothing, that Pete was a lot more sensitive to the cold than he was but Patrick might die right now from hypothermia, and he would like this to be at least worth it. 

“We’re going to die,” Pete shouts back in a grave voice, saying what the rational side of Patrick’s brain has been thinking, but the smile that flashed across his face a few seconds later when he sunk ankle-deep into the water betrayed him. Slowly, Pete began to make his way towards Patrick, hands outstretched looking for Patrick’s in the moonlight and it’s always like this: they were always going to come back to each other.

Pete clumsily grasped Patrick’s hand, a strong wave pushing him towards Patrick, and it makes Patrick’s heart flutter in his chest. “Let’s see how far we can go,” Pete says, jerking his chin forward and Patrick follows him, the grip on each other’s hands growing tighter, the only thing that was keeping their heads above the water was each other.

“I know what you’re going to say, and I’m telling you now: don’t say it”

“What are you talking about?” Pete replied innocently, letting himself be dragged forward as Patrick takes another step.

“You were going to mock me.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Pete stopped and said in an exaggerated version of Patrick’s voice, “_ It’s high tide, Pete. We’re going to die, Pete _. Admit it, Rickster, you just like seeing me naked and this was a good idea.”

“Oh, shut up.” Patrick laughed, chest squeezing, lightly shoving Pete with the hand that wasn’t holding him. “I don’t sound like that.”

Pete opened his mouth again, eyebrows raised in the way Patrick did sometimes, and Patrick splashed water into Pete’s mouth before he could speak. Pete spluttered, spitting the water at Patrick, as Pete shoves Patrick in retaliation. Patrick grabs Pete’s wrist just as they touch his chest, and they struggle as Pete tries to push him under the water.

“You play dirty,” Pete laughed wriggling out of Patrick’s grasp, his palms push Patrick’s chest only to catch Patrick’s wrists before he fell into the water. It was metaphorical in a way that Patrick will appreciate later when he’ll write about it in his journal, but now, Patrick felt bad for noticing how Pete’s bare skin glowed dark blue in the darkness, the same shade as Pete’s favorite blue. The water skating down Pete’s chest and arms reflected the faint moonlight and they looked like stars on Pete’s skin.

When Pete grabs Patrick’s wrist again, his eyes shining, mouth open in laughter, Patrick couldn’t see how this was not some sort of sign from God. Pete was literally right in front of him, has been for years, and it’s so stupid that Parick has never been brave enough to risk it.

Slowly, his mouth trembling, Parick leans in, giving Pete the opportunity to back away if he wanted to. Patrick watches the way laughter catches in Pete’s throat and he promises himself that if this ended well, he’d taste that next (the laughter or his best friend’s neck, he doesn’t know). Their chests are near enough to touch now, bare skin to bare skin, and Patrick swore he felt the beat of Pete’s heart against his. Their breaths mixed with each other and Patrick could taste the salt and summer air and the quiet, nervous laughter that Pete had exhaled in between them.

Patrick’s lips brush Pete’s and Pete opens up for him. Pete tasted like secrets and longing, with just a touch of hurt, his mouth tasted of all the promises and dreams they’ve talked about at 3 AM in Chicago. Patrick slipped his tongue inside of Pete’s mouth and it tasted like all the pent up years of wanting this mixed with salt. Patrick never realized until now how much the both of them have been _ yearning _ for this moment. Patrick pulls back a little, to breathe and maybe wake up if this was a dream, because, seriously, if this was a dream, he’d want to wake up now before it got harder to let go. But Pete pulls him back in, fingers wrapped tightly around Patrick’s wrists and the second kiss tasted saliter and even more real; it wasn’t a dream.

Patrick was kissing his best friend.

Patrick pulls back with a jolt when the realization hit and a wave pushed him even further away from Pete. Patrick opened his eyes (later on he’ll wonder when he closed them and why the fuck he would, this was a once in a lifetime experience, come on) and he sees that Pete hadn’t closed them at all; he had know who he had been kising.

But Pete was his best friend and he didn’t even like boys. Pete had a string of ex-lovers and numerous episodes of dramatic heartbreak over girls. Patrick had been there the first time Pete had introduced Ashlee to the band, that first time they went to dinner and Pete had come home with little cartoon hearts in his eyes while Patrick stuffed himself with Ben N Jerry’s that night in the dark. Pete and Ashlee had been the closest thing you can get to soulmates in LA, up until that moment when it ended, but still. Pete didn’t like the boys, he couldn’t possibly share Patrick’s feelings.

“Patrick,” Pete starts calmly, his eyes wide and his mouth red. Patrick feels bile rise in his throat at how he still wants to kiss Pete right now.

A wave crashed again behind Patrick, the cold numbing Patrick’s skin except for where Pete was holding him right now. Patrick didn’t stay to hear what Pete had to stay, he breaks the hands linking them together, and begins to move towards the shoreline. Patrick doesn’t remember anything except how the waves kept pushing him back to Pete as he tried to run, the water was heavy and they felt like sharp, stinging kicks on his body. There was a brief cutting sensation on his feet, rock, his mind helpfully supplied, but it was lost over all the noise in his head. Patrick felt cold, like his lungs were full of water— and oh, he was coughing up water outside Pete’s car’s window, how did he get here, how did he swallow that much water, thank God there was still a sane part in him that thought about Pete’s car, he’d die if he threw up in there too.

Patrick sits alone in the car, still half-naked and left shivering after kissing Pete; this is the stuff his nightmares were made of. Patrick doesn’t know how long he’s been there, it was so quiet in the car, but it was so loud in his head.

The door opened after what felt like hours and Pete climbed in, dressed in his ridiculously tiny shirt that clung to his wet skin, in his hands were his jeans and Patrick’s clothes. Pete doesn’t look at Patrick except for a quick glance, doesn’t make a sound except for a quiet, heavy sigh.

Patrick doesn’t know what Pete is thinking, what his mind is going through right now, it’s way too cold. Patrick was freezing and they were both going to die of hypothermia, some part was meant for them to die tonight, whether it be their relationship or their actual bodies that had managed to avoid being drowned by the ocean. But that’s okay, Pete was next to him, Patrick was next to Pete. Patrick didn’t know it was something that was that important, but apparently, he does want it, and now he knows.

Even if he did kiss Pete and ruin everything

“Am I that bad a kisser?” Pete asked, his voice this forced lightness. The words sound different in Patrick’s head, underneath the words Patrick had heard: _ Doyouregretit?Areyouscared?Whydidyoukissme? _Patrick was most scared about the last question.

“Oh fuck, Patrick don’t— don’t cry.” Pete pleads, leaning forward to hold Patrick’s cold hands. Patrick couldn’t help the tears that were falling down his cheeks, he was freezing everywhere except for the hand that Pete was holding tightly. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Patrick repeated in one breath, the one that he had been holding ever since their lips had parted.

“There’s nothing left to be sorry for, Patrick,” Pete answers, his voice was the softest Patrick has ever heard him speak. “I’ve already forgiven you for all the things you’re supposed to be sorry about, and this isn’t one of them.”

Pete lets go of Pete’s hand and Patrick wants to cry harder, wants to beg him to stay and never leave even if Patrick wasn’t allowed to ask Pete for that because it was him who was the one who left that one night.

Patrick was the one who cut off all contact first, and when Pete stopped trying, when Patrick’s voice mail remained empty for months, Patrick had suddenly been so, so scared that maybe he might lose Pete forever, but too scared and full of pride to do anything about it. Patrick wants to tell Pete that he was sorry, that he doesn’t deserve anything right now, but if it makes a difference, Patrick had listened to every single voicemail Pete had left him, every night on tour, he would pull it close to his ear and pretend Pete was whispering into it.

It would be unfair to ask Pete not to leave him on this beach, in this car; this place didn’t deserve Patrick’s mess. But then Pete, because he always loved too hard, because his heart was way too goddamn big, Pete’s hands were back on Patrick’s wrists, holding them on to them firmly as he struggled to get Patrick’s t-shirt on him. Pete was suddenly too near, breathing in the same air Patrick exhaled. Patrick tried to focus on anything except this, on how this might be the most embarrassing and intimate thing he’s ever done with anyone.

When Patrick was finally dressed again, Pete hesitates for half a second before climbing into Patrick’s lap and gently resting himself there. They were face to face and Pete smiles briefly, “Is this okay?” he asks nervously, biting on his bottom lip.

“Best friends don’t do this,” was all Patrick said in reply, his voice still tight and his eyes still watery. Patrick couldn’t help the hot shame in his stomach. He’s always dreamt of this, never enough to want it to happen for real, but it was a nice thing to daydream during long rides in tour buses while they jumped from state to state.

(His favorite version of this happened in Patrick’s room back home, it was supposed to be mid-summer, and they would be on Patrick’s bed, under the covers, smelling of sweat and tasting like the popsicles from the nearby gas station. Patrick would be singing Pete’s words, throwing them back to Pete and Pete would kiss him to shut him up or to taste the words in Patrick’s mouth)

“Best friends hug each other,” Pete replies a bit defensively, shifting a bit and leaning forward so his head rested on Patrick’s shoulder. Patrick rested his hand on Pete’s back and felt Pete breathe. Pete’s rickety, creaking breath under Patrick’s palm felt like he was trying to stop himself from crying too; Pete had never been able to stop himself whenever someone else cried. Patrick closes his eyes and inhales, the smell of Pete, of ocean salt and Patrick’s hotel shampoo, invading his nose.

“Are you done crying?” Pete whispered into Patrick’s shoulder, his voice mostly normal, “You wanna talk about what’s bugging you? I thought we let everything out a while ago in the sand?”

“You’re not a bad kisser,” is all Patrick can say in reply, his throat still closing up.

“Thanks,” Pete says with a small smile that only met his eyes halfway, “I was trying to lighten the mood, but I’ll be honest, I was a little worried about what you were going to say.”

It was quiet between them, an uncomfortable and thick silence resting in-between their touching chests and legs. “What are you thinking about?” Pete asked softly after a few minutes of just the sound of their breathing and the waves outside.

“If we could turn back time, would you do it again?” Patrick repeats the same question he asked earlier. He was the one who kept asking but he was still scared to know the answer to this even though it can’t be too bad; Patrick got to kiss Pete and he had Pete on his lap now, that has to count for something.

“Yeah.” Pete finally answered this time without missing a beat and this is always going to be something that drives Patrick crazy, how Pete never thinks too hard, always lets his heart do the talking. “I don’t want this night to end.”

“It doesn’t have to,” Patrick replies quietly. After a beat of silence, Patrick says, not caring if he sounded desperate, suddenly aware of losing Pete again, his fists loosely clutching at Pete’s t-shirt, bringing Pete closer to him, “You’re my fucking best friend, Pete.” 

“You’re my best friend too,” Pete replied honestly, running his fingers through Patrick’s hair. “You never stopped being mine.”

“I like you,” Patrick chokes out, the words hard to say, different in his mouth; it’s still hard to speak about love and all the feelings it brings when Patrick always dependent on Pete for the script.

Pete scoffs but he smiles at Patrick, “I think I got that from that little kiss, buddy. Since when? Since the kiss?”

“Since forever,” Patrick answered vaguely as he ducked his head a bit, unable to tell Pete just how long. “It was obvious. I think everyone knew”

“I didn’t know,” Pete replied with a pout.

And then it got quiet again, like it wasn’t actually a surprise that Patrick was a little bit in love with Pete. It was quiet again so Patrick began to overthink and his mouth began to move. “I found the letter I wrote to you. I— I read it again and so many things make sense now. Mixed with all that anger, I was just scared of how I felt for you. I was scared that my feelings were— I was scared that you were going to hurt me.

“But I ended up hurting too. I missed you. I shouldn’t have— I shouldn’t have left that night. We shouldn’t have broken up the band. Pete— I missed you so much and I’m sorry. The break happened for a lot of reasons because I was just so angry and I wanted to be free and you stopped trying and I thought that you were just to leave me so I left before you left me. It was never really about you.”

Pete smiles at Patrick, calloused thumbs brushing away the tears in Patrick’s eyes, his own eyes soft, “When you left, I kept imagining you coming back and saying sorry, I wanted that so bad, ‘Rick.” Pete admits. “I wanted you to tell me everything you’re saying right now, but it doesn’t really feel like I won.

We lost— we lost like two years, Patrick. Two years feel like a whole eternity when I could wake up every day and find you just a hotel room or bunk away from me. I thought I was never going to write another song ever again when you left that letter on my bed and then just disappeared.

There’s a lot to say sorry for. But I don’t think the break is something we have to be sorry for? I listened to your solo stuff and I remember just listening to it over and over in my hotel room. I couldn’t believe you had all of that magic in you, I was so— it was amazing, Patrick. And you had every right to want to be free, sometimes I felt like I was choking all the magic out of you.

“You keep asking if I’d let the break happen. You keep making it sound like it’s such a bad thing. And it was. But you released Soul Punk and I grew up a little bit. If we didn’t have the break, then— then I don’t know. We’d still be stuck in that cycle of hurting each other just because we were hurting and I— I— what I’m trying to say here is that— Jesus, Patrick. I like you too and that sounds so fucking small and stupid and not enough for all that I feel for you, but I don’t know how else to make you believe that. I’ve been saying how much I loved you through all those secret lyrics for years, but now that I’m in front of you, the words are failing me. But you know what I’m talking about because this is you and me, you know me more than I know myself. 

“You have to know that I’ve always— that I’ve always wanted you. It’s always been you. Even before I realized how I felt about you, every love song has been about you and I listen to what we’ve made, and I don’t know who else all those words could have been about.”

“It’s always been you for me too. You know… In the car, I was— I realized I loved you— that I’m in love with you,” Patrick lets out a huff of a little laugh, this exhale of air mixed with laughter at the release of the weight on his chest, “but I don't know why I was still so scared after kissing you. I— It’s all I’ve ever really dreamed of— well, besides having my own solo album and being this legendary fixture in pop music and having kids—and— well, okay, kissing you was one of the things I’ve always sort of wanted but felt kind of dumb to even hope because— you’re you and I’m me and—”

“You’re you,” Pete interrupts him softly, “You know the stars from last night? I really was serious about it. There’s magic here. I would have named them after you, you know? If you would have let me. I don’t know why it’s hard to believe that I would— I mean, I brought you here, to this place where I’ve always wanted to, where I’ve always promised to bring you, didn’t I? Of course, I’d give that to you, I’d give everything up for you if you want me to.”

Patrick looks at Pete, really looks at him this time, and Pete’s expression is so open, Patrick can read all of the lyrics about heartache and heartbeats all over his face right now. Pete’s mouth twitches into a hesitant smile and Patrick’s eyes follow the movement, the gentle way his lips curve and his skin makes space for it.

“Just kiss me already, stupid,” Pete whispers, his mouth— this black hole that Patrick wants to fall and get stuck in opens itself up and Patrick closes it with his own.

This beach, this summer, this kiss: this is the history of how little galaxies are made; from the explosion in Patrick’s chest; from the loud banging of his heart against his chest; with Pete’s mouth feeling like Patrick’s found something to believe in.

Patrick didn’t know if he wanted Pete to take the long way home, make the drive back last longer; the roads can be endless; the night can never move another second; Pete and Patrick can stay young forever; and when the impossible happens and they run out of gas or run out of road, they can disappear into the sea.

But also Patrick wants to be home now, to fall asleep on Pete’s bed, Pete’s arms around him. Patrick would never want to leave his bed, he’d die there but only after Pete’s died too, flowers growing out of their bodies, and Patrick would only die after because this time, he’s not going to leave Pete.

Pete laughs and Patrick realizes he had said it aloud, “That’s weirdly charming, Patrick,” Pete teases, eyes and smile shining, “The Pete Wentz crazy™ is rubbing off on you,”

“I’d rather something else rub on me,” Patrick grumbles under his breath, words slipping out, as Pete continues to laugh at him, louder, enough to fill the car.

“You’re serious about that?” Pete asks, voice low, his eyes dark as his fingers fumble to start the car without looking at what his hand was doing, too busy staring at Patrick.

Patrick bites his bottom lip, a nervous ripple in his stomach mixed with excitement in his chest, and he smiles at Pete as he rests his hand over Pete’s to turn the key to start the car. “Get us out of here first, Pete,”

“About that…” Pete says, a sheepish grin on his face, “bad news: I’m skipping my gig, we missed the whole thing. Good news is while sitting on the beach, I came to two revelations: the first one being where I realized I was in love with you, but you already know that, and the second is that I know where we are, and the better news is, we’re not that far from where we started,”

Patrick scowls at Pete without really meaning it, “So we were just burning gas for the past five hours? Think about the environment, Pete, climate change and air pollution… The next generation, our kids, are going to have to live with what we’ve left them...”

“That’s sexy, I love it when you act like a nerd, but also, can you pull that stick out of your ass for a second, Patrick?”

Patrick shoves Pete lightly, his palm falling on his chest and he pauses when he feels heartbeat underneath it, “You’re a dick,” Patrick says softly, no bite in his words.

“But you love me,” Pete says a little giddy, grinning widely at him as they started to drive.

“You’re going to use that against me forever, huh?”

“Just until it stops becoming true,”

Patrick holds Pete’s hand, the one around the shift, and squeezes tightly, “It’s always going to be,”

Pete throws him a smile, eyes leaving the road so they run the red light, but Pete quiets Patrick’s complaints about road safety with a quick kiss on Patrick’s lips. Patrick’s hands don’t leave Pete’s the whole ride back to where they started.

* * *

They end up in Pete’s apartment which according to him, was nearer to them than Patrick’s hotel was, and Patrick can’t argue since he doesn’t know enough about the geography and urban planning of Jamaica to properly debate with Pete. Patrick’s heart can’t even get twisted at the sight of the framed photographs on the walls of the band, _ them _, Patrick can’t even make fun of Pete for the mountain of dirty dishes in the sink, has barely even slipped his shoes off before Pete pulls him into his room where Patrick falls to the bed on his back, Pete on top of him, their mouths finding each other easily.

They don’t even turn on the light and it’s no problem, this is Pete’s garage, Patrick’s bedroom, this is all the hotel rooms and motels they have stayed in. Patrick’s hands explore the tight muscle underneath Pete’s skin in the darkness, memories and fantasies filling in the gaps where the faint light of the moonlight streaming in Pete’s window fail. Pete still tastes of the salt from the ocean but it doesn’t feel like salt on the wound anymore; it’s the feeling of summer in Patrick’s mouth. They make out, slow and easy, heat slowly building up in Patrick’s stomach, their hips grinding, when Patrick finally gasps out, “Turn on the lights, I wanna see you,”

Pete stills above him and it’s quiet for five seconds before he says, “My room is a mess, I wasn’t expecting you to suddenly barge into my life last night,”

Patrick rolled his eyes even though Pete couldn’t see it and shoves Pete off him, “Turn it on, Pete.”

Patrick hears Pete stumble in the darkness until he reaches the light switch by the door and turns the light on. Patrick doesn’t know why it means so much to see Pete here in his bedroom. Maybe it’s because for so long, all they ever knew were faceless hotel rooms that mixed into the same thing with the pristine white sheets, the neutral toned wallpaper, the awful paintings with interesting drawings behind them. There’s this part of Patrick that wants this moment to be special, to be permanent, something that he can remember in the future.

Pete wasn’t joking, the mess in this room was a reflection of Pete’s teenage bedroom back in Chicago and the dorm room Patrick only saw a few times. There’s a mess of books next to Pete’s bed that they were lucky to not have slipped on, clothes are thrown haphazardly around, Patrick spots a Truant Wave vinyl mixed with Pete’s pile of records and he swallows the lump in his throat, touched that Pete had bought it even though Patrick had been an ass this whole time, touched because it doesn’t matter all of a sudden, people hating the record, not really. Patrick had been so obsessed with pleasing everyone, obsessed with pouring his entire heart into this thing and getting hurt when nobody saw that, but then, maybe, in a few years, people will see what Pete saw in it. Pete always saw things in Patrick before other people did, before Patrick himself knew they existed.

“Oh my God, you have an actual laundry chair there by the corner, are you sixteen?” Patrick says instead, throat tight, and he knows Pete had noticed because there’s a softness in his eyes right now. But Pete’s kind and he knows Patrick, so he just scowls and crosses his arms at Patrick, without any actual anger because the corners of his laughter lines were still there, “Sorry for the mess, mom.”

Patrick groans and throws a pillow at Pete only for it to fall short by the floor, mixing with the rest of the mess, “Please don’t make me think of Dale, that’s like, the grossest thing ever, what’s wrong with you?”

They laugh from other sides of the room for a second, Patrick’s stomach hurting from it and his lungs were complaining about the lack of air, but this is better than any fantasy he’s ever had about this moment. And Pete glows, he glows under Patrick’s gaze and there’s a warmth that settles all over them. “Come here, I miss you,” Patrick whispers, falling to his back and stretching his arms out, making grabbing motions towards Pete.

Pete walks towards Patrick and stands right in front of him, taking Patrick’s hand into his own, rubbing his thumb there thoughtfully. Pete doesn’t make a move towards the bed and his eyes lower as he bites his bottom lip shyly, nervously; that should not make Patrick’s dick twitch, Jesus. “Okay, okay, um, this is kinda sexy, but this is— okay, the subject matter is sexy, but me asking you is kinda unsexy and um—”

“Pete spit it out before I go soft because I swear I’ll kill you or book a flight back to Chicago,”

“You’re so good at dirty talk.” Pete says a little fondly before he’s nervous again, “Can we do something? I uh— I have these— I bought them and I never used them but it’s just—” Pete gives up and looks at Patrick hopelessly, lost, asking for direction.

“Show me,” Patrick says softly, letting go of Pete’s hands, his fingers skimming Pete’s arms, only to return to rest on his pulse point. Patrick feels the quick beating of Pete’s heart underneath his thumb and he smiles at Pete gently.

Pete gulps and pulls away from Patrick’s grip to go through the drawer next to his bed. It doesn’t take long before he turns around and Patrick inhales a sharp breath when he sees Pete holding a pair of handcuffs. It’s simple, if Patrick ever thought Pete to be the handcuffs type, he would have pegged him for a fluffy neon pink number, a punchline to a joke, but this one is a sleek silver, the metal shining not threateningly, but invitingly at Patrick; this was so far from a joke, this was vulnerability. Patrick’s dick was definitely half-hard by now and no threats of flying all the way to the moon was going to soften this.

Pete grinned sheepishly and asked, “Can we talk about my abandonment issues after the sex?”

“I—” Patrick swallows, his mouth growing dry. “You want me to wear them?”

“That’s the plan… But only if you want to. I would be fine with just your dick, God it looks like a nice dick,” Pete says a little wistfully, eyes trained towards the strain of Patrick’s dick through his jeans.

“That’s kinda hot, Pete,” Patrick murmurs, “not you staring at my dick like that— that part is a little excessive — the handcuffs,”

“Really?” Pete asks a little eagerly, jumping back into the bed and before Patrick can tease him, Pete brings Patrick into another heated kiss, his tongue skimming around the curve of Patrick’s mouth, teeth biting into Patrick’s bottom lip enthusiastically. Pete is thrumming, vibrating energy over him, hands moving all over Patrick like he can’t get enough. They barely separate more than an inch, keeping the space closed between them even as they begin to strip off their shirts. Patrick fumbles with Pete’s belt but refuses to even look down and break the kiss. Pete laughs hotly into his mouth when Patrick grunts in frustration as his fingers slipped through the buckles again.

“Stupid skinny jeans,” Patrick emphasizes each word with a bite, “you haven’t grown out of these yet?”

“When are you going to stop insulting me?” Pete laughs, this golden sound spilling out of him, and pulls away, breaking the kiss, to roll his jeans down by himself. Patrick doesn’t even get to complain because suddenly, Pete is naked in front of him and Pete really was breathtaking even if Patrick’s seen it all already by the beach.

Pete squirms underneath Patrick’s heavy gaze and makes a keening sound from deep within his chest, “I’m going to cum if you keep looking at me like that.”

It breaks the spell and Patrick laughs this time, Pete’s still gorgeous, but Patrick sees all the disgusting stuff he’s seen Pete do like spraying air freshener under his armpits because they haven’t showered in days or that stupid round of piss roulette he once did in front of an unknowing crowd. Pete was all colors and shades of gross, but he was still beautiful, and Patrick’s dick really should not be attracted to him this much after witnessing all of those and more.

Pete smiles at him too, like he knows, and he pulls Patrick into a quick kiss, slotting his thighs around Patrick’s legs, palming Patrick’s dick still covered in his jeans, and grinding in slow motions. Pete teases him, feather-light touches on his jaw, guiding Patrick to a kiss where he could barely feel Pete on him. Patrick groans when Pete’s dick leaves a trail of pre-cum on his naked chest, his own dick twitching in desperation, the friction and tight and heat of his jeans growing uncomfortable

“Pete, put it on me, put it on me,” Patrick whines, throwing his head back so Pete could press kisses all over his neck, the warmth of Pete’s skin driving him crazy. Patrick wants Pete to leave bruises, purple hickies on every inch of skin like they were in high school and making out underneath the bleachers, but Pete’s teeth barely grazes the column of his neck, still teasing him.

“Are you sure, we can take it slow— I don’t want to rush you or anything,” Pete’s mouth moved against the skin of his neck.

“Pete,” Patrick grits, fisting Pete’s hair, the thick curl of his dreadlocks that made Patrick want to ask Pete to keep forever, “I’m not a fucking blushing virgin. Put those damn handcuffs on me.”

“Pushy,” Pete laughs again but he’s already grabbing the handcuffs from where they were temporarily forgotten next to them, “even though you’re the one asking to be held down.”

“_ Pete _,”

Pete finally relents and pulls away, smiling widely at Patrick as he holds Patrick’s wrists above his head, linking the cool metal of the handcuffs around it and the metal columns of the headboard. The click of the metal is almost drowned out by the sound of Patrick’s heart beating fast and loud in his chest, he’s never done anything like this, never even thought that this was something he wanted; leave it to Pete to know what he’d like. The metal is startlingly cold on Patrick’s hot skin to the point that it burns. Patrick feels like he’s running a fever, melting underneath Pete’s fingers that were roaming over his bare chest like he didn’t even realize it.

Pete’s eyes hold his own gaze, comforting and familiar, and he keeps his fingers there, over Patrick’s, gently tracing circles around them until Patrick began to calm down, his breathing slowing down, brain skipping over the panic to fully drown in hot arousal. “You okay?” Pete asks him, thumbing Patrick’s wrists underneath the metal.

“Just touch me, please,” Patrick replies, softly.

Pete’s fingers pull away and Patrick arches up into Pete’s touch when Pete’s fingers graze the line of skin above his jeans. If Patrick’s hands were free, he would have been able to pull himself into Pete and catch Pete’s mouth into a kiss or at least pull his pants down to release the pressure, but the metal cuts into his wrists and stops him, the pleasure cutting short, but it still vibrates underneath Patrick’s skin and he moans loudly, head falling back into the pillow.

“You’re so beautiful,” Pete whispers, dark eyes tracking Patrick’s mouth.

“You need to do something, Pete.” Patrick begs but Pete ignores him, pulling away from Patrick to sit in front of him, the warm skin disappearing and leaving Patrick cold. Patrick strains his neck to watch as Pete stretches and opens his legs invitingly, resting his back on the bed’s footboard, his cock still hard and seeping out pre-cum.

Pete brings out a bottle of lube and continues to ignore Patrick’s whining, which Patrick didn’t mind that much; somehow, Pete ignoring him was also a heavy turn on; they were going to have to talk about Patrick’s own issues after this too. Pete squirts out a generous amount of lube on his fingers and he finally looks up to meet Patrick’s eyes, a wide grin on his face.

“You’re going to watch.” Pete says, ”I’m going to get ready and I’m going to make you feel good later, but now,” Pete’s breath catches in his throat as his finger circles around his hole, “I’m— I’m going to— ah— torture you a little.”

Patrick is hypnotized, almost forgetting the heavy weight of his dick straining against his jeans as he watches Pete writhe around his own finger. Pete inserts a second finger into him so soon and he lets out a heavy sigh and he slumps further down his back, bringing his ass nearer to Patrick to see, but not enough to touch which Patrick only remembers when he’s pulled back by the handcuffs, keeping him in place, the sound of metal moving along the headboard making Pete laugh breathlessly.

“You like the feeling of giving up control?” Pete asks just as he introduces a third finger, his face briefly squeezing to this raw picture of pleasure, mouth opening itself for Patrick.

“Yes,” Patrick replies, voice heavy and rough, feverish. “Just for you, Pete, you’re the only one I— I trust to,”

Pete groans at his words as his fingers disappeared deeper inside of him, his movements were faster now, “You’re fucking killing me, Patrick.”

“Come over here already then,”

Pete doesn’t fight back, he crawls over to Patrick, movements a little shaky but he was letting out these small breaths of laughter like all the happiness and disbelief that this moment was actually happening were spilling out of him. Pete pulled down Patrick’s pants and boxers with better ease than Patrick expected from him, his fingers were still lubed up and he looked like was still riding on the dizzying afterglow of pleasure of fingering himself earlier, Patrick tells him as much.

“You’re such a dick even when you’re tied down,” Pete says with a huff. And Patrick groans when Pete disappears again to grab something from the drawers, a condom, and he pushes his hips at Pete, begging him to just get on with it already. Pete’s just making these soothing sounds as he puts the condom on him, his touch teasing. Pete wraps a hand around Patrick’s dick and pours a generous amount of lube over it. Pete’s fist is just the right amount of pressure and tight that makes Patrick whine and lift his hips off the bed, chasing the friction of Pete’s rough palm.

“Pete, hurry the fuck up,”

Pete rolls his eyes at him but he relents because he straddles Patrick, not putting his entire weight on him just yet. The warmth of Pete’s thighs against his own makes Patrick tremble and he looks up at Pete. Pete flashes him one more comforting smile, sincere and sweet, and he exhales as he finally sinks down, slowly taking Patrick in one long slide until he was resting on Patrick completely, Patrick’s cock twitching inside of the tight heat of Pete’s ass.

“Pete,” Patrick groaned out, pulling at his handcuffs, his wrists aching, he wanted so bad to grip Pete’s hips, for his hands to explore the expanse of Pete’s skin that was being offered right now, to grab at his ass and bring him closer; Patrick wanted all those things, but the pull of the handcuffs keeping him from it just made it all better. “Please, you have to move, please.”

Pete grins wide, this shit-eating grin that makes Patrick’s cock grow even harder and makes Patrick groan as Pete began to rise up slowly, tightening as he did. “You’re gorgeous when you’re in those handcuffs and you’re begging,” Pete says, trying for nonchalance but his voice came out breathless as he said it, “and when you give up all control for me,”

Patrick moans when Pete bottoms out again, resting his weight a little longer this time as he gave his thighs some time to rest. Patrick’s foot nudged Pete’s back gently, the pleasure making him lose control of his body and Patrick manages to say, his own voice rough, “You like it when you can keep me here, don’t you? You like me in handcuffs to make sure I can stay?”

Pete lets out a dirty groan and Patrick watches as his dick jumped from between them, already slick with pre-cum and Patrick might be a little resentful he can’t reach over and taste right now. “You don’t play fair,” Pete mutters as he begins to rise again, this time with ease, putting a steadying palm on the center of Patrick’s chest.

Patrick just laughs in reply, low and dirty, and he watches as Pete’s eyes dart from Patrick’s bound wrists and Patrick's face, eyes wide, taking the sight in. Pete begins to move faster, hips rocking, taking Patrick easily now, starting this steady rhythm, driving Patrick’s cock into him deeper.

“You’re still scared huh? That I could just leave you again in the middle of the night?” Patrick starts, lifting his hips up and meeting Pete halfway, hitting just the right spot because Pete’s eyes roll back and his eyes flutter briefly before he bottomed out again.

“Patrick,” Pete pleads, voice whining, as his hand reached over and begin to fist his dick, biting his bottom lip so hard Patrick can almost taste the blood that would be on it when they kiss again later. “Jesus, your mouth,”

“But I’m not going to leave, Pete,” Patrick continues like Pete hadn’t said anything and he feels that he’s close, that tightness in his stomach, warmth pooling there. Pete says his name again, his voice even more wrecked than a while ago. Patrick rocks up to slide against Pete’s prostate again, making Pete gasp out.

“You close?” Patrick grits out, he and Pete were both meeting in the middle now; Patrick’s hips rising just as Pete began to fall. Pete is shaking, thrusting into his fist, but his ass was still tight around Patrick’s. Patrick repeats the question, slowing down, and Pete nodded vigorously, silent while the sound of skin against skin, their gasps for breath, Pete’s name echoes around the room.

Patrick finally found the right angle to lift his hips just right so that he can hit Pete’s prostate with each thrust and Pete breaks out into a broken whine, “Good,” Patrick says soothingly, “open your eyes, open your eyes, I want to see them when you—”

Patrick stops the sentence with a groan when Pete tightens around his cock and does this roll of his hips at the same time, somehow managing to take Patrick in even deeper. Pete’s eyes were dark. Pete’s always talked about blue eyes in his lyrics, maybe Patrick’s, maybe not, and Patrick can see the magic in them but God, Pete’s eyes. If Pete’s eyes had been blue, they would be icy and cold and Patrick would be drowning in them right now, water entering his lungs and stealing his breath away, but they weren’t blue, they were brown. They were this deep, intense brown and Patrick was lost in the dark. Patrick suddenly didn’t know what to say, words getting caught in his throat.

“I’m close, Patrick,” Pete whines softly, his fist a blur on his cock, “I’m really, really close,”

“I’m here, Pete,” Patrick says soothingly finally finding his voice and he wishes he could run his fingers through Pete’s hair right now, “I’m here, I’m here, I’m finally here.”

Pete came, and Patrick tried to hold back his own orgasm to take the sight in; that this was what Pete looked like when he came: his face open and free and trusting, so, so vulnerable to everything Patrick was giving him. It’s only when Pete lets out this long, drawn-out groan as his cock began to stain Patrick’s stomach with cum, his ass tightening around Patrick’s cock, that Patrick finally lets himself go, losing himself to the pleasure of the tight heat of Pete. It’s the white hot pleasure that Patrick’s come to expect, but there’s also relief, this sense of warmth and safety that falls over him, this feeling of _ finally _ that mixes with it all and it makes him groan out loudly, and he knows other words fall from his lips, nonsense ramblings and slips of the tongue that were all true and everything he’s been afraid to admit.

When Patrick comes back down, Pete has already slipped out of him and thrown the condom to the floor, which was kinda gross, but before Patrick could make a half-hearted attempt at an insult, Pete’s mouth ghosts over his, barely a touch of anything, but they breathe and Patrick’s rapid heartbeat slows down into a steady calm. Patrick feels Pete smile, the turn of his lips, and he smiles too. Pete pulls away after that and unlocks the handcuffs, bringing Patrick’s wrists to his lips and kissing them even though they were just a little bit tender and raw. Patrick likes the attention though, likes being taken care of, and he lets Pete. Patrick also lets Pete wipe away the cum from his stomach with a t-shirt on the floor, which was also gross, and Patrick was about to call him out this time, but all that came out of his traitorous mouth was a long groan of pleasure.

“Next time, I’m going to make you cum but only when I say you can. You’d like that? I’d be in control?” Pete asks, voice just a little fucked-out and low, and it’s enough to make Patrick’s dick twitch in interest, pain mixing with the ebbing pleasure still running through his body right now. Pete sees it and he grins, eyes softening just a little bit like he still can’t believe Patrick was right next to him. Pete falls on top of Patrick, hiding his face into Patrick’s neck to hide the grin Patrick can still feel on his skin. Pete is sweaty and gross but he’s warm and Patrick doesn’t ever want to let him go.

“Pete,” Patrick starts a little firmly and Pete groans above him, moving his face into the curve of Patrick’s shoulder, “Pete,”

“Can we talk later?” Pete whines, “I’m tired from the sex, bottoms really need to be respected for their work more, like, we deserve a veteran discount or whatever. There can’t be any tops without a bottom.”

“Don’t change the subject,” Patrick rolls his eyes, “we should talk about—”

“About the handcuffs,” Pete sighs, still not looking at him, but he worms his way nearer so that more of his warm skin washed over Patrick’s, “you care too much about me and usually I find that really hot, but a lot of the time, I resent you for it too,”

Patrick is quiet as Pete pauses looking for the right words. When Pete continues, his voice is small, “I know I should— I’m getting better at it— you know, thinking that you guys actually liked being around me and not pretending— and yeah, the hiatus took a little toll on that and I’m still scared you’re going to leave me like everyone else has, but— I don’t know, I guess I’ll just keep getting better until all the noise in my head just goes—” Pete trails off, thinking.

“Until all the good stuff just sounds like you, I guess,” Pete mumbles, “Is that weird? Is it too much to say after having sex together for the first time? We haven’t even been on a date yet,”

“It’s the Pete Wentz crazy, it’s kinda hot even if I resent you for it sometimes, don’t worry,” Patrick assures Pete with pinched lips because he was trying hard not to laugh. Patrick’s fingers begin to draw circles on Pete’s back, and he adds a little more seriously, “I’ll sing to you everyday if it will take away the pain,”

Pete hums and Patrick feels the vibration all over, even underneath his skin, making his bones rattle, Patrick can write a song solely based on that sound alone, “You’re my favorite sound in the world, ‘Trick”

Patrick brings his fingers to Pete’s chin and makes sure Pete’s looking into his eyes right now. Patrick can’t see himself in Pete’s eyes so he hopes that what Pete sees is the truth right now; the truth being everything that Patrick feels but won’t ever have the words for, the gap where his words fail him, Patrick hopes his eyes don’t. “I’m never going to leave you, Pete. You don’t have to hold your breath and wait for it to happen anymore— it’s not— I’ve learned my lesson. I’m here with you even when you’re going to stop wanting me,”

“That won’t happen,” Pete smiles, this watery little smile, and he kisses Patrick deeply, “Thanks for that, for everything,”

“Sorry for hurting you,”

“No more apologies,” Pete moans, dramatically raising his arms in the air only to fall back around Patrick, “we’re going to need a sorry jar,”

Patrick laughs just as Pete laughs and the feeling fills both of them up. Patrick listens to the ugly sounds that were Pete’s laughter and thinks that this is better than hearing Bowie or Prince live, his heart is full of the feeling where he thinks that this is it: this is the exact moment where he has to be right now, wet and sandy sheets and Pete with his arms around him. Everything that has happened, the split, conversations on a rooftop, a near-death experience in the ocean because he couldn’t keep his mouth to himself, a pair of shiny handcuffs, these all had to happen so that right now can exist, so that Patrick can exist in this second, in this moment, where he’s looking into Pete’s eyes, as wild and bright as the time before Patrick had hurt him, and they laugh like they don’t care how this story ends; things are going to be okay.

When they get tired of laughing, when their teeth are aching and their lips are shaking from being stretched too long, when the silence falls on them the same way the moonlight falls on their skin, Patrick feels at peace.

Up until that moment when Pete interrupts it to ask, _ We can keep the handcuffs, right? _ Which only sets them into a flurry of laughter all over again. And Patrick doesn’t know how long they laugh for this time, just when it becomes quiet again, Pete looks at him or Patrick looks at Pete, and they dissolve into a ridiculous fit of laughter until they forget what the joke had been.

They laugh until the sun comes up or until that moment when they’ve fallen asleep, Patrick isn’t sure which, but when he wakes up and sees Pete’s face too close to his, still asleep, breathing morning breath all over him, his skin drinking in the sunlight, Patrick feels like it’s finally summer instead of a memory of a feeling; that this is what summer is: the sunlight, all these songs inside his head that are dying to be played out in front of them, every single one of these songs about the same thing, and Pete finally on the same bed as him, back in his life.

**Author's Note:**

> it's 2019 and we have to give pete wentz's hiatus project the love and attention it deserves; listen to [summer nights](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_TwFdPhLec) this fic wouldn't have existed without it
> 
> the poem at the beginning and the poem in the fic are wishbone and snow and dirty rain, both by richard siken
> 
> also the blog post pete wrote is an actual thing, read it [here](http://www.mtv.com/news/1631040/pete-wentz-cant-imagine-playing-in-fall-out-boy-again/) and he did buy [truant wave on vinyl](https://supersfade.tumblr.com/post/186791685380/ahomeboyslife-stoked-this-came-in-the-mail-today) which i love and hate him for bec they're expensive as hell now and im jealous
> 
> thank u so much for reading this! please leave some kudos n comments if u can, i'd love to know what u guys thought abt it :D


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